Dust-off those runners for our biggest race event

Feel like a good run to get the cobwebs out of your system?

 Now’s the time to shake off the dust and doubts of the past two years and sign-up for a race at this weekend’s Orange Running Festival.

Don’t worry if you’re not in peak condition, Orange Runners Club have organised a range of events for the novice to the dedicated marathon runner, with a first-off race for those looking for a quick sprint.

“We’re having a new event this year on Saturday, March 5, the ‘Orange Mile’ a race of 1600 metres. There’ll be three races the Junior Orange Mile, the women’s race, and the men’s race,” event coordinator, Anthony Daintith explained.

“We’ve got quite a lot of fast races catering for that; light events to complement runners of different levels; this includes our 2km junior event on Saturday (March 5),” Anthony said.

Impacted by the lockdowns over the past two years, the Runners Festival is now in its 15th iteration after a modest beginning in 2007.

“Since it started off, it’s grown each year; we’ve had people come from overseas for many events, Brazil, England, Japan but, in more recent times, it’s been closer to home.

“Even this year though, we have a few interstate runners with almost half the participants outside the 2800 postcode,” he said.

Even with lockdown restrictions only just ending, the Festival is expecting hundreds of runners to participate: “We’re hoping for this year to get up to 1500 runners,” he added.

With the sprints featuring over the first day of the weekend, the big, long-distance events feature on March 6: “On the Sunday, we’ve got our usual marathon, half-marathon, 10km and 5km events.”

The Festival also incorporates a series of races-within-races with “team challenges” for groups of runners to clock up the most “clicks” for each event.

“In the 5km events, we’ve got quite a few challenges, for schools; primary and high school divisions, and a 5km business challenge.

“Right across all events, we’ll also have a ‘government challenge’ for the likes of DPI, Education, Health, these are team events of who can run the most kilometres.”  

The Running Fest has traditionally drawn the full range of competitors from serious, professional runners to social joggers, he added.

“We’ve had Olympians and Commonwealth Games runners and people in their first race; 80-year-olds and mothers pushing a pram,” Anthony said.

With the last two years leading to serious drop-offs in average levels of activity and a rise in obesity rates, this weekend offers the perfect chance to get off the lounge and get the old pistons firing again.

“It provides, as we come out of COVID, an event to go to and participate in a safe manner,” he said.

If you worry that the time for late entries has now passed, think again, Anthony said.

“Entries are still open the day before each event; if you’ve been holding-off and holding-off and wondering whether to run or not, now’s the time to sign-up,” Anthony said.